I offer below, for your edification and delectation, a truly international list of euphemisms 1,
for being slightly crazy, absent-minded, eccentric or downright peculiar.
This list had been compiled with the help and sufferance of the h2g2 community.2
So here goes:
- A few clowns short of a circus
- The wheel is spinning, but the hamster's dead
- Got a screw loose
- Nutty as a fruit cake
- Bats in the belfry
- Chink in one's armour
- Lost the plot
- Out to Lunch
- Not on the ball
- Odd ball
- Loopy
- Potty
- Doolally
- Mad as a hatter
- As sharp as a marble
- Suffering from a marble deficiency
- There's a rip in his marble's bag
- Losing your marbles
- Basket case
- Mad as a monkey on a trike
- Not firing on all cylinders
- A kangaroo loose in the top paddock
- Hasn't got both hands on the steering wheel
- Hasn't got both oars in the water
- One wave short of a shipwreck
- A few bricks short of a load
- One scout short of a posse
- One card short of a full deck
- An olive short of a pizza
- A sandwich short of a picnic
- A sausage short of a barbecue
- Four quarters short of a dollar
- Ten pence short of a pound
- Five cans short of a six-pack
- A tinny short of a six-pack (australian version)
- A few french fries short of a happy meal
- One put short of a par
- He or she is living in cloud cuckoo land (nine)
- If I gave a penny for his/her thoughts I'd get change back
- Not the brightest bulb on the tree
- Not the sharpest tool in the box (shed)
- About as bright as a burnt out lightbulb
- There are no phones on planet Pluto
- Wired up to the moon
- A few slates missing from the roof
- A tile (screw)loose
- Not quite the full shilling (ticket)
- Driving on only three wheels
- Knitting with only one needle
- The lift doesn't go all the way to the top
- The lights are on (the door is open) but there's no one at home
For more 'maddisms' the reader is advised to watch the highly popular TV quiz show, The Weakest Link, hosted by the inimitable, grand inquisitor Anne Robinson. Her snide and disparaging comments about the contestant's mental abilities and her generally contemptuous, belittling manner, though somehat contrived, are deserving of mention in any formulation of madness and its hall of famous euphemisms.
1 Definition of Euphemism: 1. a mild or vague expression substituted for one thought to be too harsh or direct (e.g. pass over for die) 2. the use of such expressions (based on Greek euphemos 'fair of speech').
2 Special thanks to: Platypus 2, Thing, Oolon Flux, unremarkable, deackie, Bagpuss, Red Dog, Jezerg, Zmrzlina, and Jenks.
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